Pike's Folly by Mike Heppner, a review from Esquire by Anna Godbersen.

"Stuart Breen ? a novelist, and thus one of the better developed characters in Mike Heppner's wicked novel Pike's Folly ? is not at peace with the concept of fun. For Stuart, 'To have fun was to acknowledge that nothing one might accomplish would ever amount to anything important. It was the spiritual equivalent of committing suicide.' Happily, Heppner is not himself this kind of writer; Pike's Folly brims with fun, although it is the kind of Waugh-like breezy black humor that cloaks a biting satire." Read the entire Esquire review.